


Falling Down

by NikkiJustTalk



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Battle, Canonical Character Death, Heartbreak, Imagined Universe, Love, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 08:30:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikkiJustTalk/pseuds/NikkiJustTalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(The reverse of 'Waking Up')</p><p>Merlin liked to forget. He was scared of remembering. But everyone has to remember eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Down

Merlin had it. He had everything. He was good at his job, he had a big comfy flat, and he had a giggling best friend currently baking him cookies in his kitchen. His girlfriend would be coming round soon, so unfortunately, said best friend had promised to include several suggestively shaped biscuits in the batch, and arrange them strategically around the flat before leaving.   
He loved her. Well, he thought he did. She laughed at his jokes, and she cried at stupid things and she let him hug her to death. And he laughed at her jokes. And he let her make him happy. And he didn’t have cook for himself when she was around. She also didn’t mind if he answered his mother’s calls in the middle of dinner.   
She kissed well too. Not too much tongue. A little hesitantly most of the time, considering how little they saw each other, but that was ok. No one’s perfect. She worked for the BBC, a receptionists on one of the desks or something, and would usually send him excitable texts throughout his lunchbreak, describing each and every celebrity to walk through her lobby and send her a cheeky grin. He hadn’t met her parents yet. He didn’t really want to. She’d met his though, and although she may have been a little wary of his father, which was understandable as he usually frightened Merlin a bit too, but she adored his mother, and would even take over some of those mid-meal phonecalls if he ran out of things to say.   
She didn’t want kids. He did. But that wouldn’t be a problem. They were only young yet, and had the rest of their lives to worry about that. In fact, they had the rest of their lives to worry about everything. 

The giggling from the kitchen rose into a full blown laugh and there was a bang behind him as the oven door shut and the metal tray of cookies was dropped onto the counter. Frowning Merlin padded across the flat and popped his head round to door to look. Apparently two of the more explicit cookies had, well, merged as one, and had then split to become what can only be described as the first living cookie baby made through a version of contraception usually reserved for humans.   
‘Ha!’ He grinned at the sight, watching his flatmate dance around the kitchen, pulling open drawers and cupboards, before drawing out a large packet of icing and winking in a way that suggested pure evil was about to happen before his very eyes.   
He liked his flatmate. They’d been living with each other for over a year, and always shared a taxi on the way to work. They’d also worked out a rota for the cleaning, wherein Merlin did the shopping, and neither of them did anything else, and simply waited for one of their girlfriends to clean the flat up for them. They also held the bi-monthly party for the office, and the once a week game night for their couple friends.   
This was his life. Work, party, date, laugh, drink, eat, and sleep. He went on expensive holidays. He met up with friends from Uni. He met his mum for lunch in town. He was happy. He liked his life. 

And then there was a sound from behind him. There was the sound of a metal knife hitting a metal tray.   
And then it was the sound of a metal sword hitting a metal sword. And he wasn’t on a big comfy sofa, watching his flatmate spill sugar all over their floor. He was lying face down in a muddy patch of earth, and there was a dead man’s hand tangled in his hair. Arthur was slumped against him, chainmail dark with blood and face pale and cold. His eyes were closed and peaceful, like he was simply dozing in the middle of a war. Arthur was dead. 

So was Merlin, only a few seconds later. His brain had been scared and had panicked, and had taken him away to a life where he was happy and alive, and the person he’d sworn to protect with every fibre of his being wasn’t lying next to him, dying in a pool of his own blood. His legs had been so badly beaten that he wouldn’t have been able to escape, even if he wanted to, and he’d been pretty sure his right arm wouldn’t work very well without a hand attatched to it. Arthur had died with a hand in his hair, calming him down as he cried. And then Merlin had died, with Arthur’s hand in hair, knowing with absolute certainty, that he wouldn’t have had it any other way. He was home.


End file.
